Indiana Court of Appeals

The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that clothing from the store H & M that bore the company name and security
tags attached to the clothing could be admitted at a woman’s trial for theft from the store on Black Friday.

A Howard Superior judge properly refused to dismiss theft charges against a man because, despite the defendant’s arguments
to the contrary, the Howard County charges were not previously prosecuted in Miami County.

Even though the Environmental Protection Agency changed a rule to exclude ethanol plants from the category of chemical process
plants which would affect emissions permitting, Indiana had to seek approval from the federal agency before it could reclassify
the ethanol production facilities.

The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s determination that an infant is a child in need of services after
finding the parents have improved their living situation that led to their three other children being removed.

The Indiana Court of Appeals held Tuesday that a dismissal based on the failure to provide an appraisal with an offer to purchase
property for road work improvements was not an adjudication on the merits, allowing a city’s counterclaim for appropriation
of the property to be dismissed without prejudice.

A Gibson County farmer may not bring a nuisance claim against a neighboring dairy that dramatically expanded its operations
to what he called a “factory-like ‘mega-farm,’” the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.

A suspended Gary attorney who was awarded a quiet title to an abandoned, foreclosed property after he entered a house without
authorization and began to maintain it was stripped of the title Tuesday by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

A lengthy divorce proceeding involving two Fort Wayne attorneys that raised numerous issues on appeal was mostly affirmed
Tuesday, but a dissenting judge cautioned that joint custody was not in the interest of the of the feuding parents’
daughter.

Finding that there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether an employee was acting on his own behalf or on behalf
of his company when he sought a law firm’s services, the Indiana Court of Appeals ordered more proceedings on the firm’s
complaint for payment.

The Indiana Court of Appeals concluded Tuesday that summary judgment should have been granted in favor of Vincennes University
on a former basketball coach’s lawsuit alleging breach of contract after the university did not renew his contract for
the following year.

The Indiana Court of Appeals was presented with an issue for the first time: whether a child support order should be reduced
for the time a child is living on campus when a court has found that the child has repudiated the non-custodial parent, and
on that basis refused to enter an educational support order.

The dissenting judge in a case involving the dismissal of a company’s petition for judicial review of a decision by
the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission believed the petition must be dismissed based on the language of the Administrative Orders
and Procedures Act. The majority ordered resolution of the issue on the merits.

Finding that a construction supervisor’s receipt of unemployment benefits didn’t preclude him from eligibility
for temporary total disability benefits, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a total award of more than $61,000 to the injured
worker.

Worried that upholding a man’s conviction based solely on DNA presence on a glove found at a crime scene would create
a precedent for criminals to frame someone else, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a burglary conviction out of St. Joseph
County.

Inaction by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to update a man’s driving record to reflect his lifetime suspended license
is not enough to nullify a statutory requirement that his lifetime suspension be imposed, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled
Wednesday.

The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the suppression of evidence in a man’s drunken-driving case, finding police did
not have reasonable suspicion to pull the man over because he was driving left of center on a county road to avoid poor road
conditions.

An argument over the wording of the state’s robbery statute gave the Indiana Court of Appeals pause but ultimately did
not sway its ruling in affirming a conviction of conspiracy to commit robbery resulting in serious bodily injury.

Citing several cases from other jurisdictions, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded that brief contact with the fog line
or swerving within a lane ordinarily is not sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion of impaired driving.

The Indiana Court of Appeals agreed with a convicted murderer that his bloody shoe should not have been admitted into evidence,
but the judges did not overturn the conviction, ruling other substantial independent evidence supported the guilty verdict.

An Indianapolis man’s claim that the state failed to disprove his claim of self defense did not persuade the Indiana
Court of Appeals to revisit his two murder convictions and sentence of 115 years in prison.